Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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EVENTS

Goodbye, American Republic

Well that’s it. Obama won and the American republic, if not all of western civilization, is now officially dead. That’s what the wingnuts have been saying repeatedly over the last few months, that the nation can’t survive another 4 years of Obama, that we will now become a socialist dystopia where Christians are persecuted and put in FEMA camps. Here’s Rick Joyner last week claiming that if Obama is reelected, “We are headed for the worst, most terrible form of tyranny there has ever been seen on this earth.”

Like every other ridiculous, paranoid pronouncement from the loonies over the last 70 years, this will turn out to be wrong — and yet it won’t even slow them down on continuing to make similar claims in the future.

I honestly think the meanest thing we, as atheists, can do to Christians is be nice to them. At least in person. And maybe occasionally mention about all those “end of the Republic” stories before the election, how silly and ignorant that stuff sounded, oh, not you, of course, I know you’ve got much better sense than that, but, you know, those sad, deluded people.

This morning I decided I’d collect all the wingnut daily predictions of disasters that would happen if Obama were reelected. I downloaded several pages and quickly realized that this would be a major (impossible) project. In fact nuttiness is the rule at WND. Joseph Farah doesn’t recognize nuttiness and consequently makes no effort to hide it.

@#3 Otrame – I agree. I’ve had xtains be shocked (like needing to sit down shocked) when they found out I’m an atheist and much too ‘nice a person’ for that to be true.

Now that Obama is re-elected; I’m kind of looking forward to see who my mandatory gay marriage partner will be. My wife is looking forward to being married to a tree. I hear Rick Santorum will be forced to gay marry his familie’s Rottweiler.

Well…as Ed himself has made clear over the months (years), the trends toward tyrrany ARE worrisome, and Obama HAS exacerbated or accelerated many of these trends.

The problem, of course, is that this is a bipartisan trend. These people want MORE OF THE SAME in many cases. They want more war, more police powers, more catering to the financial pirates and rentier class, more authoritarianism. All exacerbated by enforced fundamentalist religion, American Shariah.

Heck, except on a few social issues, Obama has been an exemplary right wing Republican. Except for the fact that he is “un-heartlandishly hued”, which is the major sticking point for many of these nuts. And not a foamer when it comes to religion, of course.

Obama holds positions that not that long ago would have been those of a Moderate Republican. Now we are to believe that this stand is left of Karl Marx. I guess that a knowledge of history back more than two weeks is too much to expect from these idiots.

The defeat even had one of the FRC loons wondering if the Mayans were right…

In reality, for the most part this wasn’t much more than a “hold the line” election for the Democrats. Very important, yes, but the odds are that in four years time we’ll still be looking at being one election away from a majority conservative SCOTUS and more nonsense economic plans involving sweeping tax cuts and a major weakening of the welfare system. Future Republicans candidates will learn from this defeat and simply won’t talk about abortion or gay marriage in the same way many already refuse to be drawn over evolution.

Also, don’t expect the Republicans to do that badly with Latinos next time. Many are already wagering that Marco Rubio will be the Republican nominee in 2016 and even if he doesn’t win a majority of the Latino vote, it will be much closer to 50%.

If Democrats had any sense, they should already been looking very closely at Florida and Texas with a view to 2020. Both states will be much more Hispanic than they are today, and if the Democrats win a majority in the state government in 2020 they will be able to undo two of the most egregiously gerrymandered state maps in the country. That can only happen if Latinos begin to vote in the numbers that white people do, so that’s where the hard work needs to be put in.

These people want MORE OF THE SAME in many cases. They want more war, more police powers, more catering to the financial pirates and rentier class, more authoritarianism.

I don’t agree with all that. Yes, Americans are more conservative and authoritarian than most of the rest of the Western world, which has led America to this point, but voting for the lesser of two evils is forced upon them by the current electoral system.

Sure Democrats could have stayed home or voted for a third party in protest, but that would have allowed an even more entrenched authoritarian plutocrat into the White House and goodness knows what additional damage he could have done. Sometimes it’s more important to hold the line than seek ideological purity.

The US didn’t get here overnight, and it’s not going to get out of it overnight either. But the first thing to do when you want to climb out of a hole is to stop digging and that’s what a majority of Americans voted for this time around, but only the barest of majorities. There is still a long, long way to go.

“…we will now become a socialist dystopia where Christians are persecuted and put in FEMA camps…”

I don’t think we should do this. Instead I think that they should be released into the forests and hunted like wild animals. Much more fun. We could make a lot of money from the sale of hunting licenses to fund our satanic agenda. Just my opinion.

So now we have a bunch of armed nutjobs scared that the world is going to end. I hope the president has increased his security until people settle down and realize the country is not going to collaspe.

“…ridiculous, paranoid pronouncement from the loonies
over the last 70 years…”
Hmm, that would include what all of us hippie college
students said when it appeared that George Wallace
was getting some traction in the primaries. & then
when there were riots in Chicago in 1968, we were
sure that the longhairs & radicals were all going to
be rounded up & put in camps. As Lazarus Long said:
“Recessions, depressions, wars, revolutions–these
things pass.” (But of course, Lazarus was proved
wrong later in the story.)

“We are headed for the worst, most terrible form of tyranny there has ever been seen on this earth.”

Exaggerating just a teeny bit? Hey, I can do that too!

Rick Joyner has to be old enough to recall tyranny under Caligula, Nero, and Diocletian. They cancelled the National Prayer Breakfast too, and the worst that happened was a few odd Christians getting thrown to the lions. Does he really think it will turn out worse under Obama, or did centuries of senile dementia make him completely forget that things eventually sorted themselves out after the collapse of the Old Republic?

“We are headed for the worst, most terrible form of tyranny there has ever been seen on this earth.”
And in one sentence he manages to completely dishonour the millions and millions of people who have been tortured, murdered or oppressed under a long, long list of truly brutal tyrants.

I saw from tweets last night that Victoria Jackson lost her mind? No, mind isn’t the word for it. Um, maybe she lost the last thin, fraying sliver of sanity she had remaining. I guess that would be the best way to put it.

birgerjohansson – 40 Million out of 653.46 million or 6.121% of the total. For America to come close they’d have to kill about 19.1 million* (say around 4,7745 million a year)
Dingo
—–
* That would like depopulating New York, Los Angeles, Chigago, Houston, Philadelphia and 44% of Phoenix in four years!

The only thing they have to look forward to now is the world’s complete and utter destruction next month. Unfortunately, it will because of the Incan gods, not their psychotic monster.

I thought it was because the Mayan Long-Count Calendar goes Poooofff!!!1!!
Which is really embarrassing for Great Psychotic Sky Faeries, theirs, Incan, and others… Innumerate as well as bad temporal and spacial aim.

Oh, poor, poor Victoria Jackson. On Twitter she’s begun peddling a satire-website story claiming that delayed military votes would have swung the election for Romney.

She doesn’t realise that it’s satire, despite the fact that other headlines on the page say that Joseph Kony is leading in the presidential race and that Romney has promised to pay the entire defence budget out of his own pocket.

ambulocetacean – It seems, despite their strong visceral reaction to things they consider ‘dirty’, the RRW have poorly developed gag reflex*.
Dingo
—–
* must be all that ‘ghey agenda’ that keeps getting rammed down their throats.

“…ridiculous, paranoid pronouncement from the loonies
over the last 70 years…”
Hmm, that would include what all of us hippie college
students said when it appeared that George Wallace
was getting some traction in the primaries. & then
when there were riots in Chicago in 1968, we were
sure that the longhairs & radicals were all going to
be rounded up & put in camps. As Lazarus Long said:
“Recessions, depressions, wars, revolutions–these
things pass.” (But of course, Lazarus was proved
wrong later in the story.)